The Loudness
Our house was the loudest place I’ve ever been in my whole entire life.
At the time The Loudness felt a bit like a natural fact of existing, even though a large percentage of us could not handle The Loudness and hated it so so much, even if it was accidentally largely our own fault actually.
Any amount of quiet, no matter how big or small, doesn’t ever overrule The Loudness. No matter how you try to regulate, suspend, monitor, or balance it. The Loudness wins by nature of being more loud than all the quiet combined.
We tried to regulate it in so many different ways. I say “we”, but what I really mean is—our parents tried to get us to stop screaming all the time but it was no use. I was a big-time-participant in The Loudness at the time, even though it actually was never right for me and still stresses me out when it flares up now in our adult lives.
When The Loudness already exists, you play the game, and you struggle, and you fight to become The Loudness above The Loudness, since it feels like the only way to exist. I didn’t know at the time that The Loudness was taking over my soul—it wasn’t until getting my own places to live, that I realized I didn’t feel the need to walk around and sing at the top of my lungs or even at the bottom of my lungs—at all. Pretty much ever. There were lots of strange arbitrary things that stuck with me from the culture of our home; like eating popcorn every night, or staying in a room while the sun sets and hanging out in the dark without realizing it for a long long time—but The Loudness was not one of these things.
Erica used to walk around the house singing at the top of her lungs, and so, I would walk around the house singing too. She sang so loud and so consistently, and so did I, because I loved to sing, and also because I just didn’t really want to hear her singing every time she decided to. We used to sing all together in the car late at night on the way home from Nana and Pop’s house, or Mémère and Grandpa’s, or whoever’s house we were at too late on any given night. All three of us in the backseat, Dad would play anything he knew would rile us up to sing along—using The Loudness as a strategy to help him stay awake while driving home.
Derek would not participate.
Derek always seemed to understand everything better than us. He knew The Loudness was not a lifestyle he could actively participate in with any kind of peace of mind. He never fought to have the word, or to be heard in the same way Erica and I did—though, there were other ways he embodied The Loudness; like constantly playing the Yamaha keyboard we kept in the middle of the house for years until it was moved to his room.
Erica is/was/and always has been the truest source of The Loudness in our home. Erica is a massage therapist now. She spends her days in a quiet room filled with calming smells and music, staying as quiet as possible until she can break free from her clients and get back to The Loudness she loves most.
And Derek—the most quiet person in our home besides our Mom who is also very quiet—turned out to be a singer, songwriter, musician, and a person who makes sounds for TV as his job.
Thank you so much for reading along. Your support keeps these stories rolling and is greatly appreciated!